Of course, it’s a better when the player in question has a username which lends itself to clever headlines; you don’t want all that money going to some asshole who decided to call himself “sss66666” or some shit. What are you supposed to do with that? Sometimes, however, one runs into the opposite problem.

The latest big (glorious, enviable) winner in the Spins is a Russian going by the screen name “Solid Penis.” This upstanding member got lucky yesterday, on Twitch no less, setting the record for biggest money shot on live stream (for €250,000). He topped the likes of Rupert Edgar and Doug Polk in the process, each of whom had held the position for roughly six months, so not only has he set the bar high, but it may stay up for a while.

It’s the sort of story that needs to be reported on, but one that needs some slick presentation to find the mark, given PokerStars’s recent efforts to build a more wholesome image for itself. Stephen Bartley, writing for the PokerStars blog, handled the problem with poise, despite its magnitude, but by the time it was over, it was clear even he’d had enough; following the climax of his piece, he fairly begged for PokerStars users to be gentle with him in future, and enter the Spins only if they have easier-to-take names like “Goldilocks” or “Little Red Riding Hood.”

On the subject of Spins, Vice-President of the PokerStars Ministry of Transparency Derek Trollrouser was caught somewhat with his pants down, as his initial response to the situation was to try to convince everyone to ignore the elephant cock in the room, a position from which he subsequently had to backtrack.

“Could also be shortened form of his real name,” he offered on his second attempt, “Soliditry Penistroyko or something? Someone help me out here.”

Those tweets have since been deleted, as Trollrouser’s higher-ups at Amaya decided to accept Solid Penis as he came. It may even be the case that his pseudonym proves to be a boon to the company in the long run, as Trollrouser pointed out in a subsequent post.

“Due to the success our competitors have had in pushing past the threesomes we’re currently offering, we’ve decided to follow suit and start offering 4-Max Spin-and-Go’s as of this November. We feel that Mr. Penis is a solid fit as spokesperson for these Four-Plays, as we’re calling them.”

Whether or not the Four-Plays prove enticing to their clientele, the truth is that things could have ended up much worse for PokerStars. Questionable usernames abound on all poker sites, and indeed, from the moment that fateful jackpot hit, things were bound to get messy for the PokerStars marketing team.

“It was honestly a no-win situation for us,” admitted Trollrouser when we reached him for comment, “I mean, if you look at his opponents. Third place was a guy called ‘Rektal Infektion’ and the runner up was ‘Trump2016.’ This was basically the least bad result, and it’s a good thing our DoomSwitch™ operator was on the ball to give Penis his four-outer after Trump flopped the set. Can you imagine?”

An independent study commissioned by PartTimePoker has revealed that such cock-ups may turn out to be the norm in future. Analyzing 100,000 usernames gave us the following breakdown.

36% Genitalia / Sexual References

21% Scatological References

15% Self-Aggrandizement

13% Sports Teams

9% Utterly Forgettable

6% Gibberish

1% Other

“I’m honestly not surprised at all,” admitted Trollrouser when shown those statistics, “What do you expect? Half of our users are 14 year-old boys signing up with their grandmothers’ credit cards, and the other half are complete imbeciles. Don’t quote me on any of that.”

Alex “Gorilla Balls” Weldon (@benefactumgames on Twitter) is regarded as among the most mature voices in the poker world. This article blends fact and fiction, in case you couldn’t tell: Everything from the fifth paragraph on (“On the subject of Spins….”) is entirely made up, while most of the information preceding that point is real. Except the bit about the Poker Media Illuminati, who definitely don’t exist.

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